THIRD ASTER FEST IN STRUMICA

Culture.

The 3rd Aster Fest, a festival dedicated to independent works and film authors in Southeast Europe will be held on May 31-June 4 in Strumica and its surroundings. The festival is increasingly becoming appealing for young filmmakers in the region and elsewhere. It is announcing 50 short-length, middle-length and long-length documentary and feature films coming from 25 countries.

Since last year, the documentary programme of the festival has become competitive, and best films are conferred Golden, Silver and Bronze Horseshoes upon a decision of a jury. What is interesting this year is that a few Macedonian films and works by Macedonian-born authors living beyond Macedonia are taking part in the festival.

Competing for awards will be an extraordinary Macedonian-Slovenian production, the documentary authored by Petra Seliskar and Brand Ferro, “The Grandmothers of the Revolution,” a film that should open at the Frosina cinema within its regular repertoire; “A Trip to Vis Major” by Macedonian Belgian Georgi Lazarevski; Bulgarian documentary “In a Particularly Harsh Way” by Rosen Elezov; and “Sugar City,” a film pronounced the best in Greece and Cyprus; as well as Bosnian “Carnival” by Trieste award winning Alen Drljevic.

The films are divided in seven programme categories: competitive Aster Docs; Balkan Fiction, One Woman – One Film, (Pan)Human Right, Mary-Dions, Moovieland, and Dedications. A special cycle with recent Albanian production will be shown this year in collaboration with the Albanian Film Centre.